videogame things you think about a lot lot lot lot

[Broco]

I was idly wondering if Ebert ever did play Shadow of the Colossus, like so many gamers were urging him to

I think his last word on games-as-art was this blogpost and it says:

There was no agreement among the thousands of posters about even one current game that was an unassailable masterpiece. Shadow of the Colossus came closest. I suppose that’s the one I should begin with.

Hmm, so maybe he did go on to play it? But the rest of the post makes it clear that he really, really would rather not:

And I didn’t want to play a video game. If I should dislike it, I already had a preview of the response awaiting me: I was too old, I was over the hill, I was too aged it “get it.” That became the mantra: “Ebert doesn’t get it.” I disagreed with them about age, which I know more about than most of them, but I had some sympathy about the concept of not “getting it.”

Rereading his post now that I’m myself middle-aged, Ebert comes across as wiser than his critics in a new way. Some of them talk as if there is unlimited time in life to commit to finishing multiple ~50-hour videogames, even for a person who has rarely enjoyed a videogame in the past. If for no other reason than to become a sufficiently informed participant in a bitter, never-ending online debate-war about the True Nature of Art.

Ebert understood life is too short for all that. So he chose to cut his losses in the grand debate he himself started in a disappointingly inconclusive, anti-climactic way. In order to spend the rest of his limited time on earth on the movies and novels he knows he does appreciate.

[hellojed]

I think Ebert would have liked Gravity Bone or 30 Flights of Loving because they’re mainly walking around type games and have pretty direct film inspirations, and are also really short. I do feel like trying to convince Ebert about games as art has about the same weight as getting The Last Of Us exhibited in The Guggenheim or something.

[Tulpa]

He was perhaps the biggest proponent of classic art game “Cosmology of Kyoto”, I think his only error in the debate was putting the word “art” on a pedestal when it properly belongs in the gutter

[bib]

@Roger Ebert

I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place.

he just like me fr

[sleepysmiles]

idk did anyone ever bother Roger Ebert about comic books? or pop music? let people stay in their chosen lane lol

[u_u]

Did convince Ebert games are art people turn into convince Scorsese marvel movies are cinema people

[drastic_bb]

1:1 overlap, surely…

[Father.Torque]

The nerds are desperate for your approval. You must not give it

[RT-55J]

why can’t i have a bunch of fawning, obsequious nerds desperate for my approval??? what have i ever done wrong in life?

[hellojed]

“The frog for whom the bell tolls” might be the perfect videogame

[L]

[Grandpa]

I think Roger Ebert would have liked Stretch Panic…

Been thinking about MGSV again, and how I’m pretty sure that Venom Snake is my favorite of the various Snakes.

Say what ya will about MGSV, but there is something kinda cool about “guy who gets brainwashed into thinking he’s another guy, but he’s just as skilled as the real deal so he just keeps on keeping on after the truth is revealed to him.”

“But what about Solid, and Liquid, and Solidus, and Big Boss?” Did they have a dog? Or a horse they could make shit on command? No? Then what about them.

[Cerium]

[Persona]

Same logic as

[strangelilfella]

@hellojed

“The frog for whom the bell tolls”: might be the perfect videogame

"Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru" Music : 29 - Credits Roll

[razorbeamz]

We as a society need to return to making a tie-in game for every single movie.

[razorbeamz]

In 2025 most of us think OutRun looks better than Virtua Racing but in 1992 pretty much everyone thought Virtua Racing looked better than OutRun.

[daphaknee]

virtua racing let you sit at the cabinet at hit the camera change button without even inserting a credit and thats why child me liked it more

[iguferon]

I have a friend who literally cannot play games older than like, the year 2000 because they are “too hard to look at.” Pretty much anything pre-3d graphics gives her a headache.

I think about this all the time because oh my god what a horrible curse

[meauxdal]

hmmm, disagree. virtua racing still looks better than outrun

edit: i think outrun looks better in screenshots but V.R. looks better in motion